I use a measuring spoon that came with brine shrimp eggs. I normally just use 2-3 scoops per 5 gallons of water. Never had any issue with loss of bacteria. I can smell the chlorine in my tap water but after adding the Safe no chlorine smell.
Water conditioners
- Thread starter BullyBee
- Start date
There is probably some oxygen consumed in the reactions but I doubt it would have a major impact, I have done 4x prime doses on big water changes with no ill effect
im happy I got prime. My grandma got me some for my birthday and I recently opened it. I was shocked to see how small the dosing sizes where compared to the petsmart brands I was using before. In my 55 the petsmart brand would only last me like a month. The prime bottle has lasted for a couple now. I think even with the price its well worth it.
What a lot of hobbyists don't realise is that the dosing instructions on dechlorinator are to neutralise 'X' amount of chlorine, but your actual chlorine levels might be different to their 'X'. I think PRIME states that 10ml of their product removes 5mg of chlorine in 100 gallons of water. This is a bit of a blanket statement by Seachem, and is great if you do indeed have 5mg of chlorine in your tap water.
If you physically check your local water report on line, very easy to do this, and find out exactly what your level of chlorine is, you can find out exactly how much dechlorinator you need.
As an example, I was dosing as per their instructions for 5mg of chlorine, but on further investigation I only have 0.75mg of chlorine in my tap water! So I was dosing FIVE times more than I needed!!! I never experienced any adverse reactions from my fish whilst dosing way more than I needed, which proves that slight overdosing isn't an issue, in fact Seachem state that you can up the dose in certain circumstances.
That said, dechlorinator is a reducing agent, and if there is very little chlorine for it to react with, as in my case, and you really overdosed on a monumental scale, then you could have problems because it would then react with the oxygen instead, like you alluded to, and you may see your fish gasping for air.
When I first started using SAFE i got the measurements wrong and my fish were really stressed. SAFE is a lot easier to overdose because the levels needed are tiny, especially in small tanks.
Rather than using bottled purified water for my bear's tank, I used betta water conditioner for my tank. My fish seem perfectly happy in the water. I just put a couple of drops into a bucket of tap water. After a couple of minutes, my water test kit showed zero readings for chlorine. In addition, it contains beneficial bacteria that help break down the ammonia into nitrites.
Despite looking delicate and fragile, it is not that difficult to keep betta fish. Unless you want to, the only things that you will need to keep them happy is a supply of good food and using the best betta water conditioner with every water change.
